Famous People In Computer History

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Top 10 most important people in the history

of computers
Posted on 7 May 2010 at 12:00, by Expert Reviews Staff
It's hard to imagine a world without computers, so reliant on them we've become. What makes
this more surprising is that computers, although considered and thought about for a long time,
have only recently (in terms of history) been available. The profound impact they've had on our
lives, both directly and indirectly with the inventions and technologies they've helped create,
make them one of the most important inventions in human history. This week we've rounded up
the ten most important people in the history of computers. We've listed them in rough
chronological order, so that numbering's not really important and there are bound to be some
people that we've had to miss off the list.
10. Charles Babbage (26 December 1791 - 18 October 1871)
Charles Babbage first came up with the idea of a mechanical computer after seeing how
numerical tables calculated by humans (called computers) had a high-degree of error. He decided
that by creating a device for doing the same job, the errors could be eliminated. The difference
engine was born: a machine capable of calculating the values of polynomial functions
automatically. Sadly, although funding was in place, the difference engine was never completed.
Not deterred, Babbage turned his hand to the Difference Engine No. 2, an improve calculating
machine, and the Analytical Engine, which was the first
programmable computer in existence. He even drew up plans for
the first printer. Babbage died before any of his designs could be
built, but his influence should not be underestimated and his
designs inspired other people to work on computers.
His work has since been proved viable. The Difference Engine No.
2 was constructed between 1989 and 1991 at the London Science
Museum, using 19th century manufacturing tolerances: it worked
(and continues to work) perfectly, performing calculations to 31
digits. His printer was also constructed and shown to work - proof
of Babbage's genius.

Regardless of the fact that his computer was never built while he was alive, Babbage opened the
floodgates to a new world of computing machines. Without him, we may not have the modern
computers we have today.
9. Alan Turing (23 June 1912 - 7 June 1954)
Alan Turing was principally a mathematician, most famous for helping break the German's
Enigma code during World War II at Bletchley Park. It was here, though, that Turing turned to
computers to help break codes faster, saving millions of lives in the process and shortening the
length of the war.
The initial machine Turing created was the Bombe: an electromechanical device devised to help
the code-breakers device the key of the day the German's were
using on their Enigma machines. Using a menu provided by the
codebreaking team from a crib (a selection of plaintext that
corresponded to ciphertext), the Bombe operators could quickly set
up the machine and let it calculate possible Enigma settings, which
could then be verified by hand. The design on the Bombe was
enhanced by Gordon Welchman, and the rest, as they say, is
history.
After the war Turing was an influential figure and came up with the
Turing Test: a method by which to test artificial intelligence.
Prosecuted for homesexual acts, Turing committed suicide in 1954,
and we'll never know the full extent of where his fierce intellect
could have led us.
8. Tommy Flowers
Another member of the Bletchley Park World War II team, Tommy Flowers was instrumental in
building the world's first electronic computer: Colossus. The principle purpose of the machine
was to break the Lorenz Cipher, used by high-level Germans, including Adolf Hitler.
Built using valves, the computer was five times faster and more flexible than its predecessor,
Heath Robinson. Colossus was the first programmable, digital,
computer and revolutionary at the time. It's success in code breaking
was demonstrated when Eisenhower was handed a decrypt showing
that Hitler wasn't going to move more troops into Normandy and the
D-Day landings stood a high-chance of success.
After the war Flowers' achievements went largely overlooked until
the '70s, due to the secret nature of the work. However, he continued
to have a profound impact at the General Post Office, helping to
design the all-electronic telephone exchange.

7. John von Neumann (28 December 1903 - 8 February 1957)

John von Neumann was one of the greatest mathematicians of our recent times, making a huge
impact on a wide range of fields, but it's for computer science that we'll recognise him here.
It was von Neumann who came up with the computer architecture
that's named after him. In a paper, he described an architecture in
which both data and the program are stored in a computer's memory
in the same address space, making for more flexible computers that
were easier to program.
This remained the default computer architecture until more recent
times, where development of technology has allowed for more
complex designs.

6. Douglas Engelbart (30 January 1925)

Douglas Engelbart might not be a name that's well known, but he was a pioneer in the
development of the modern computer. While working at the Stanford Research Institute (SRI),
he created a research department with an agenda entitled Augmenting Human Intellect: A
Conceptual Framework. In other words, creating methods by which people would interact with
computers.
It was here that he created the mouse (then a wooden shell with two
metal wheels in it), still the de facto way that we interact with
computers today. He and his team also created bit-mapped screens,
hypertext and some precursors to the graphical user interface (GUI).
The research started here allowed Xerox to continue development
and come up with the basis of the windowed-operating system that
we all use today.
5. Steve Jobs (24 February 1955)
The world seems to split between those that love Apple and its products and those that hate it.
Regardless of which camp you're in there's one thing you have to give Apple and Jobs credit for
and that's taking an idea and making it desirable.
In 1976 Steve Jobs, along with Stephen Wozniak and Ronald Wayne founded Apple. Although
the company had early success with the Apple and, in particular, Apple II computers, it was the

original Macintosh (1984) that changed things: it was the first computer to have a graphical user
interface and mouse rather than a command line interface.
The Macintosh really highlights Jobs' ability to take existing technology and improve it, making
it desirable. In the case of this computer the graphical user interface
had been developed by Xerox and the mouse by Douglas Engelbart;
it was Apple that made them successful.
In 1985 Jobs was relieved of his duties as head of the Macintosh
and Apple's fames and fortunes took a nosedive. It wasn't until Jobs
was brought back on board in 1996, after Apple bought his NeXT
Computer company that Apple's fortunes turned round and it started
to make a profit.
Since his return, Apple has produced the iPod, the most popular MP3 player in the world, the
iPhone, which has sparked an entirely-new industry with Apps and the iPad. With OS X and the
move to Intel hardware, Apple is a leading company in the personal computer market.
His influence outside of the computer industry has been immense, too, with his Pixar company
(later acquired by Disney) kick-starting computer-generated films with the incredibly Toy Story.
4. Philip Don Estridge (23 June 1937 - 2 August 1985)
Philip Don Estridge, known as Don Estridge, led the development of the IBM Personal
Computer (PC), arguably the most important computer in the history of computers. It's the
creation of this computer that's led to the types of computer that we have today.
The IBM PC was designed as a way for the company to get into the small computer market,
dominated at the time by Commodore, Atari and Apple. The
revolutionary part about the computer was that it was designed by
using off-the-shelf parts available from OEMs, rather than creating
brand-new technology. This let IBM create the PC in less than a
year and keep prices down to affordable levels.
Even more surprising for the time was that IBM decided to use an
open architecture, so that other manufacturers could produce and
sell peripherals without having to purchase a license. As we all
know, this open architecture also meant that other companies could
start creating their own IBM-compatible computers. It's this
architecture that exists today and even Apple has changed to
embrace it when it switched to using Intel processors in its Mac
computers.
The IBM PC also opened up the door for Intel's and Microsoft's success. Without Don Estridge
and IBM the world would be a very different place.

3. Gordon Moore (3 January 1929)

Gordon Moore is justly famous for his eponymous law, which describes how the number of
transistors that can be placed inexpensively on an integrated circuit doubles approximately every
two years. Although an observation at the time, Moore's company Intel (co-founded with Robert
Noyce) has adhered to it, delivering faster and more complicated processor designs.
It's through Intel that Gordon Moore's main contribution to computers is recognised. Initially a
semi-conductor company, Intel dramatically shifted its focus to
processors. The company supplied its processors to IBM for use in
the PC, and with the success of that market, all of the IBM PC
clones.
The company has seen off competition and has seen its architecture
become the de facto standard in everything from high-end servers to
entry-level laptops. Even Apple has switched and is running its Mac
OS X on Intel architecture.
As the founder of Intel, Moore has helped shape the modern world and create the base
technology platform that the majority of the world uses, whether its Linux, Windows or Mac OS
X.
2. Bill Gates (28 October 1955)
Whatever you may think about Bill Gates, there's no doubting the impact that he's had on the
computer market. He's best known for founding Microsoft - a name that's synonymous with the
personal computer market.
Although Microsoft didn't actually invent DOS (Tim Paterson of
Seattle Computer Products) did, the company has based its fortunes
on it, exclusively licensing the OS and later buying it outright to
service IBM's PC. From DOS, Microsoft went on to create
Windows - the most successful operating system ever, and used by
the majority of people the world over.
Gates is a key figure in the success of Microsoft - equal parts
technology genius and business man, he's pushed, cajoled and
basically dictated the computer market. While Microsoft may have
lost its way a little and missed out on repeating its success online,
the company remains a powerful force.
Gates has moved on to charity work, with the Bill and Melinda Gates Foundation. He's promised
to give away the bulk of his fortune in charitable work, which makes it hard to hate him
completely.

1. Tim Berners-Lee (8 June 1955)

Of all the cool claims to fame, inventing the world wide web has to be the best. That honor lies
squarely with Tim Berners-Lee. While working as a contractor at CERN, he came up with a
system called ENQUIRE, which enabled sharing and updating information between researchers
using hypertext.
It was in 1989 when he returned to CERN that he saw an
opportunity to link hypertext to the internet (itself only actually a
way of connecting computer networks across the globe) and the
World Wide Web was born.
He designed and built the first web browser, created the first web
server and, in short, changed the entire world as we know it. We're
now so reliant on the internet that it's impossible to imagine life
without the world wide web.